training for The Big Whatever
Been moving through a rough patch lately. Such is life, eh? My 74th turn around the planet right around the corner, a reminder of my draft into life’s black belt training unit. And what is it I am training for? Every day, like it or not, I am the recipient of ever advanced readiness coaching for The Big Whatever.
The current training centers on my throat. Which has had my attention for many years. Perhaps since 1968 when I first heard the word “feminist” and got curious about my own bona fide voice. Such a slow building ground swell over the decades. One of the reasons I chose to teach; its incessant demand to open mouth, take a risk, let words emerge. Fast forward through the years, in the last decade, increasing difficulty with swallowing. The metaphor possibilities are abundant.
Consider this a public service/public health announcement. Because difficulty with swallowing is a common problem and I wish I had known that and sought medical attention earlier. Diagnostics in process. Will let you know how this current black belt training is going. And in all vulnerability this morning I share some creative writing that helped me explore this territory.
But before you read Thrice by Throat, please know the website bodyjoy.netwas utterly hacked. More metaphor? My beautiful capable daughter is helping me build another site. You will be the first to know when it is ready. Me? I’m feeling very well indeed and my three work worlds are alive and thriving. If you need info, email me at bella@bodyjoy.net. Or just pick up the phone the old way and call me (916) 267-5478. I love talking with you.
Release & Realign Friday 10:00 Sierra 2
Wednesday Waves 5Rhythms 6:00 Clara Auditorium
Sunday Sweat Your Prayers 10:00 Clara Auditorium
Physical Therapy in my studio in East Sac or on Zoom in your room
And so, without further ado, here is:
Thrice by Throat
And if only someone had warned me that my life story would run to myth, be peppered with epic elements, events Gabriel Garcia Marquez would mine for gold. Would I have made different choices? But here I am, apparently the reigning star of a magic realism show. This is the stuff of fairy tales, a fable unfathomable yet entirely factual.
It begins with my befuddled sister Beverly, third born to a family making do in a run down two bedroom Cincinnati walk up. Which we abandoned shortly after her birth, spilling all over a spacious suburban home in Long Island, New York. Where I started first grade and sweet Beverly began her abbreviated journey. Suffice it to say those earliest years remain shrouded in mystery. My memory distilled the day mentally retarded entered my family’s lexicon. What began as foreboding slowly devolved into devastation.
Beverly lived six years and suffered abuse and institutionalization along with my abiding love for her heart, bursting with a vitality that occupied a class of its own. She was a behavior problem who would not stay put, whirling through existence as a dancer without bounds.
And her end came during a hospital stay for pneumonia during which she aspirated a food piece, choked to death, alone. I hope her distress was not protracted. Her love of food was a clear match for my own.
From here we enter fantasy realms, beyond the veil beguile, though every detail is utter truth. Twenty-two years after this death, Belle, Beverly’s mother, my mother, was also hospitalized. For end stage cancer. She was 56 years old with a lust for life full of travel and meaningful work and joy for feeding those she loved. A life that rode her through many a hair raising turn, beginning with the shocking passage of her young daughter. Which proved to be only an initiation into a long reign of bad karma. I was nine months pregnant when she dreamt in that hospice bed that I had delivered a big baby boy. She died 10 days before my nine pound son was born.
And her end came in that hospital bed when she aspirated a food piece, choked to death, alone. I hope her distress was not protracted. Her love of food was a clear match for my own.
And here sit I, a survivor of this feminine lineage, newly diagnosed with constricted esophagus. Can you believe it? Already a full decade into this malady. A distressing history of feeling my breath rudely wrenched from my throat. The panic, the helplessness, the terror. The horrifying sense of aspirating a food piece. A choke to death preview. Alone. My love of food unparalleled. Would that the distress not be desperately protracted.
And always, co-existing with this event, the utter loss of speech. Does this myth have a moral? Does it reveal the voyage of voice over many a woman’s lifetime? What it means to have a say, the courage to speak up, speak out, allowing unfiltered truth to erupt sans rehearsal. I witness my own un-stifled pearls gaining in speed. They fall from my lips in astonishing moments, authenticity manifest. And for this I have providence and luck and my own persistent hammering on this particular nail to thank.
Some mornings I hear my sister’s plaintive cry squelched behind a blue battered door. My mother, hand shielding her mouth, faintly whispers to me on the regular. I behold the carefully constructed muzzles that grace their yearning faces. And, can you believe it? I have lived long enough to set us all free.
May all beings be free.
❤️Bella